Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A supply stored for future use, usually carefully accrued and maintained.
  • transitive verb To accumulate and maintain a supply of for future use.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A supply of something kept safe for future use.
  • verb To accumulate a stockpile.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb have on hand
  • noun a storage pile accumulated for future use
  • noun something kept back or saved for future use or a special purpose

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

stock +‎ pile

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Examples

  • His stockpile is rivaled only by the personal stash of George Lucas himself.

    Star Wars Stockpile » Fanboy.com 2007

  • Most likely what occurs is, that the stockpile is sold off after a certain amount of time and repurchased at the same time, to keep the amount consistent.

    Think Progress » VIDEO: Energy Secretary Said Strategic Reserve Should Not Be Used to Lower Gas Prices 2006

  • Soviet stockpile is also a tremendous one, perhaps one-third or one-half as large as the U.S. stockpile.

    Linus Pauling - Nobel Lecture 1962

  • Now they aren't doing all this on only $1,500 a year -- they're really doing it on $2,700 a year ($1,500 plus what they call their "stockpile" -- an amount of food, etc. that they started with that's valued at $1,200.)

    Free Money Finance 2009

  • According to U.S. and Pakistani officials, there is no way a complete nuclear weapon can be taken from Islamabad's stockpile, which is protected by about 10,000 of the Pakistani military's most elite troops.

    Jamal Dajani: Pakistan: Who's To Blame? 2009

  • It's true, as experts testified last week, that the computer modeling the United States would use in place of nuclear tests -- called stockpile stewardship -- is not flawless.

    Playing Politics With The Bomb 2008

  • My milk stockpile, which is all carefully dated and organized into tuppware containers, takes up about 90% of our freezer space.

    Ready for armageddon ScienceMama 2007

  • GERBERDING: Well, the stockpile is a mechanism to give manufactures an incentive to increase their production.

    CNN Transcript Oct 18, 2004 2004

  • In the light of the experiences of the residents of Macassar, the continued presence of the stockpile was a source of great concern and fear for the community.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 1997

  • "There's going to be a lot of lives lost," said Mimi Sheridan, referring to the stockpile of petrol and gas canisters they planned to use against the bailiffs when the time came.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011

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